Clandestine Confessions

How did I get here?
I could give you the abridged version – the one you would find in textbooks.
Tell you about the anxiety, the desire to feel in control, the need to numb emotions, etc.
But that doesn’t fully answer the question, does it?
Because my mind could have landed on a slew of different coping mechanisms.
So why an eating disorder?
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We will need to rewind to the very beginning…
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But first, let me say never will I play the blame game regarding the disorder.
I lived in that through therapy, and it not only caused tension in relationships but put me in a victim role.
It portrayed me as a helpless girl who had no control.
By putting all the responsibility on others, I relinquished ownership over my emotions and my behaviors, stripping myself of my authority.
Placing me back at square one feeling powerless over my own life – which only intensified the need for the disorder.
It was crucial in my healing to stop putting the cause of the disorder on other people and instead recognize their words and their actions played a role but did not make me engage in any behaviors.
I can look back on my life with grace filled eyes for what others said and did.
With a mind open to seeing the truth but not letting it define me.
And with a heart that can forgive.
I saw my blessing when I stopped the blame.
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Now, let’s proceed…
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From the outside looking in, there was no visible trauma.
I was raised in your average American family.
I had a mom and a dad (who loved one another fiercely), a sister (who I idolized), and a brother (who was my hero).
I lived in a beautiful colonial style home in a quaint and safe neighborhood, complete with the minivan in the garage and the swing set in the backyard.
I had the quintessential Barbie dreamboat, Fisher Price dollhouse, and an American Girl doll…two actually.
I learned responsibilities by hatching and raising my Tamagotchi bunny and dinosaur.
My first crush was Aladdin…and then I raised my standards a bit and moved to an actual human being; Brian Littrell of the Backstreet Boys.
(Although, my odds were better for dating an animated character.)
We had family dinners, took yearly vacations, attended my brother’s baseball games together, went to my sister’s dance recitals.
There was no “obvious” reason why I drifted into the darkness of my mind or how I came to live in shame of who I was.
My self protecting denial reminds me that I had grown up with all that many wish for – and that should warrant only gratitude.
But “perfection” does not negate pain…it only perpetuates the need to hide it.
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And I had been living in a secret since I was three years old.
It is my first ever memory…
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It happened during my first gymnastics class.
An event my little heart was so giddy to experience after watching my sister dance – striving to be just like her.
I walked out onto the open mat and began following the teacher’s instructions.
About halfway through, the teacher asked the class to get in the bridge position.
Having never tried it before, I did my best to arch my back and hold myself up.
But it was not enough.
The teacher walked over, unsatisfied with my attempt, and made it known.
Spewing out words I so wish I could have closed little J’s ears from ever hearing.
“No wonder you cannot do it. You are too fat.”
Please keep in perspective that I was THREE…
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I sat back on the mat, looked over in the direction of my mom and sister trying with every bit of strength I had to not cry in front of the class.
To not let the teacher see a tear stream down my face so afraid of what she would say.
But my blurry eyes would only see my sister sitting there.
My mom had gone to the bathroom – never having heard the words spoken to her daughter.
The timing most inconvenient – as if calculated by a greater force…
In the moment I needed to be seen the most, protected the most, my mom was not there.
In silence and in fear, I finished the class.
Never to return.
Ultimately letting a dream die – allowing those words to dictate my choices, carrying that one sentence around with me in every day of my life moving forward.
That memory would shape my future and my identity.
Because with nobody refuting the lies I had penetrating my thoughts, it all became my truth.
Beliefs that only intensified with the continual unkindness of this world.
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All the boys in second grade, my neighbor, kids in my sister’s fourth grade class teased me relentlessly every single day.
Making comments about everything from my weight to my looks to my intelligence.
Nothing was off limits.
The waiter at Friendly’s I encountered when I was eight – when my grandmother took my siblings, cousin, and me out for lunch.
Asking my grandmother if my sister and I were twins.
To which she answered no.
The woman decided an appropriate response would be, “Now I see it. This one is skinny” (pointing to my sister) “and that one is fat” (pointing to me).
Nobody said a word about it.
Ever.
I did not speak for the rest of the meal.
I did not touch my cheese quesadilla.
I did not get my favorite sundae – the Monster Mash – two scoops of ice cream with Reese’s cup ears, M&M eyes, chocolate syrup and whipped cream hair.
I did not know this would all be a frightening foreshadowing of the years ahead…
Then there was the doctor showing me meaningless charts about where I fell in the regards to my weight with girls my age.
“You are in the ninetieth percentile,” she felt compelled to tell me. “Meaning only ten percent of girls your age are heavier than you.”
I went home that night and cried in the shower, cried in my bedroom, cried myself to sleep.
The irony that she would be the same doctor to diagnose the anorexia…
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With each new critique, my self-perception was being molded.
I felt unworthy. I felt ugly. I felt rejected. I felt helpless. I felt too much.
I was now required to hide.
I was now required to hate myself.
I was now required to deny myself affection.
I felt that it was me who was the problem.
And that was the most damaging, long term effect of all.
One that still plays out to this day.
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Kind words spoken to me my mind vehemently denied.
Truth no longer held weight.
It did not matter that my family loved me.
It did not matter that I was a beautiful little girl who was bound to give an abundant amount of life to the world, who had a future so bright waiting to be claimed.
It did not matter that I was not unlovable, that I was not unworthy, that I truly did deserve to be seen. Because those things, amidst the ever growing criticism, were no more real than the fairytales I read about.
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I was now seeing the world with a new pair of glasses; dark, distorted, and with blinders.
Constructed from circumstances I could not prevent or control.
Every thought, every emotion, and every action were filtered through those corrupted lenses.
And lead me to agree to a deal that would alter my mind, my emotions, and my body.
For years to come…